I am currently filming for a documentary I am tentatively calling Zen in America, a project which will take several years to complete and will require that I travel the country interviewing Zen teachers, scholars and practitioners while also compiling footage of the ceremonies and rituals of Zen Buddhism. The idea is to create a multi-part documentary offering viewers an overview of the founding of Zen in America, it’s practice and leaders in the modern day, and portions on ritual and more. I think there is a great story to be told, and soon I’ll be calling on you and the Buddhist community at large for funding through a Kickstarter campaign.

I have the essentials of my equipment at the moment: my camera, my lighting setup, microphone capabilities and more. However, there are plenty more items that will help make a high-quality, all-the-more more professional film. The Kickstarter campaign will largely fund my travel expenses to shoot on location at various Zen centers and universities, and I plan to jump-start the campaign by September. In the interim, I figured I would create a wishlist of items I would like to have available for the documentary over at Amazon.com: http://amzn.com/w/36GDWGOQP90DI

For now, you can help me assemble my videography toolkit by using the wishlist to send me those items for use in the film. Those who do order from the wishlist will have their name featured in the credits of the final film as a funder (optional, and can be an individual or organization). This wishlist is more or less complete in terms of my foreseeable needs. I want this documentary to really capture what is happening in the country in terms of this practice, allowing the experts and practitioners themselves to tell its story.

I have collected footage at Berkeley Zen Center, Empty Nest Zendo, Hartford Street Zen Center, as well as city footage of San Francisco and Berkeley. I did these using a very bare setup, and have since invested around $1500 of personal funds to upgrade my camera, improve sound quality and lighting and more.

So perhaps giving funds directly isn’t your thing and sending me some items on the Amazon wishlist is more up your alley, allowing the production to be as professional as is possible. Also, if you have one of these items you would like to donate, you can contact me about that, as well.

Thank you so much for your support in this endeavor. The film is going to be made possible by many people, and I’m happy and excited to be involved. Please share this page on Facebook and help get the word out!

17 comments

Focusing too much on the equipment is a mistake. What is the story you’re trying to tell? Is there a narrative arc? How about a theme? Character development?
Those are basic things you have to consider, plan, and possibly script. Otherwise, you could do an observational documentary where you shoot 100 hours of footage as a fly on the wall, and hope that a compelling story falls out of it.

But a documentary consisting entirely of talking bald heads won’t work. Typically, there needs to be some change occurring, as in any good film. Maybe it’ll be your personal development, a kind of introspective road trip film. You’d have to be open to that from the start.
What do you have in mind? Do you have filmmaking experience?

I’m with Dave on this. Once you get set up with adequate equipment, I would suggest the main hurdle is to define and narrow down your topic to something very specific. It helps to think about your audience: if this is directed toward people with a general interest in Zen, you maybe could at least try to narrow down what kinds of people these are (age, demographics, lifestyles and so on) and get rid of everything that doesn’t fit that demographic. It is sometimes better to have a smaller, well defined audience than a massively generalized one who lack the specific interests to sit through it. I would also suggest surveying your readers of SZ for the kinds of things that would interest them because you have right here a qualified demographic.

People have a lot of stereotypes about Zen, and particularly Zen in America with its counter-culture roots and significant hippie component. Then you have the single-minded, 80s style success oriented type of Zen seeker who would exemplify Steve Jobs. There is the idea that Zen is a form of virtue, which seems patently false, or that practice is about quoting Song dynasty poets and Asian platitudes, or retreating into nihilism or simplified views on karma. The Zen aesthetic is probably something to be explored, especially as an artist yourself, and how traditional Japanese styles have blended with more secular or “Western” elements in America. You could go the historical route and look at Suzuki and Katagiri’s twin legacies. You could go the living memory route, by interviewing people who were practicing back then when Zen was still relatively new. Or you could talk about your own personal spiritual journey and express some of the kinds of ideas and feelings your have put in your essays. Or about the endless contradictions of Zen and how they are reconciled through meditative practice. Maybe you could even look at Zen online in America and how it compares and contrasts with traditional practice settings and ideals.

Making it smaller and more specific to single purpose may seem like you are leaving a lot unexplored — and that’s true. But you will have greater impact the more you narrow it down. If you save some material under a rock you may have enough for a second documentary down the road. Anyway good luck with it. May the road carry you exactly where you are.

This is going to be a series on the history of Zen in America to the modern day. Thank you for your feedback. However, this will be an interview-driven documentary with some narration, as well as footage from the locations interwoven in. Scripts for the style of documentary I plan come after the filming process. This is nothing like the fly on the wall analogy you used, to be clear. I’ll be actively interviewing these people and yeah, there will be core questions. I’m sure I’ll develop even more as I get further along in this.

I have zero film-making experience. I do, however, have quite a bit of understanding regarding Zen’s development in the United States. I’ll learn as I go as I have done developing this website. I am an artist (painter) and believe you can’t force a story (like a painting) on anything. You can only tell the story once you have the right paint.

Not focusing on equipment is a mistake – especially when starting a production. So, I appreciate your feedback and believe you mean well, though I’ve been thinking quite a lot on this as is. And, who knows what the story may become?

Plans at this stage are tentative. I know Adam Eurich of Seeking Heartwood started with one vision, and in editing is finding something completely different. He had no film-making experience, either.

“Scripts for the style of documentary I plan come after the filming process.”

Are you sure this is true? I think NellaLou and red shift had good suggestions for how to approach the filmmaking aspect. I never said anything about forcing a story, but it’s naive to assume that the alternative is not to have a story at all.

Frankly, from reading your writing here, you don’t strike me as someone adept at “going with the flow”; maybe some planning would work better for you.

It’s odd that you feel it necessary to say “I believe you mean well” – seems like a kind of passive aggressive way of responding to my tone. But anyway, of course I “mean well”, because:

1) I enjoy watching great documentaries, and I think that if you’re going to do something like this, you should aim high. You have a unique opportunity; don’t squander it! More humility may be in order…
2) Since I have some experience of getting in over my head on a project like this, it looks like you may be in over your head, without knowing it yet. If you think running this website is difficult, making a film as ambitious as yours will be even more so.
3) Asking people to buy you expensive equipment and fund your travel puts your project in a different category. It’s no longer just-noodling-around. If you completely self-funded it, then it wouldn’t matter much what you did. I’ve never had the gall to ask other people to pay me to learn how to tell a story. 🙂

The other thing about doing something so ambitious is that for a time, you have to believe that it’s the most important thing you could possibly be doing. It requires operating under a necessary delusion because, let’s face it, the story of zen in america isn’t crying out to be told in film form. So, how do you believe in the project 100%?
Looking at the example you gave, http://seekingheartwood.com/donate/ he self-funded for 2 years before asking for money. He seems very dedicated:
“I’ve done this on an absolute shoe string budget: no apartment, no hotels, just me on the road: camping, couch surfing, sleeping in my car, not eating enough, and working odd jobs – whatever it takes”
Will you do as he did?

I know at this point it’s true for me and I base that also on some of the readings I have done on the process of documentary film. Funny you mention Adam Eurich of Seeking Heartwood, who I’ve been in contact with. Like Eurich, I have no background in filmmaking. I simply have a story I’d like to tell and just because you declare it to not be a story crying out to be made does not make it so.

Yeah, I don’t plan on staying in any hotels (don’t plan on starving, either, for the record). In most cases, I’ll probably be shacking up at the Zen center in question or at one of the sangha member’s homes. In case you’ve not noticed, I’ve been going along a lot like that anyway in my work here since 2009. That is to say I don’t make enough to truly sustain myself and yet I keep at it anyway, because it’s something I am passionate about.

In an interview-driven documentary, you can’t divine a crystal ball regarding what people are going to say or give as an answer. What you can do is try and hit on the questions unique to that individual, interview after interview. And yes, again, I do have a story in mind, the most significant of which is to give a broader view of Zen’s import here on screen. There’s actually a lot of material there ripe for the picking.

Honestly, I think I’m positioned pretty well to pull something like this off. In my work here, I’ve made so many contacts with members of the North American Zen community. I also have a pretty good knowledge of the lineages we’re dealing with and how Zen actually did come here. I know who the key scholars and authors are who have written that history in print already, and will be pursuing them for interviews to help flesh it all out, all while showing archival footage and photographs true to the period.

You spoke to me of coming off as passive aggressive and yet your tone isn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. The way you framed my asking for assistance is one example of that. The insinuation that if I’m not a starving artist, living homeless on the streets as I set out to do this, that somehow that’s a bad thing. I’ll lack the proper street cred.

Adam Eurich’s film is Adam Eurich’s film. It’s not mine. Why don’t you withhold your judgment of me for a while and give me a chance first before deciding how crazy I am for doing this? Maybe wait to see the actual film when it’s done and then make an assessment. It’s a bit premature at this point, I think, for you to be casting all of these aspersions.

I KNOW this will be a giant project. I KNOW it’s not going to be easy. I KNOW it’s not likely to be rewarding in any financial sense. But I do hope to learn a lot from the experience, both about myself and the practice as well as filmmaking, and in the end I hope to deliver something really great. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother.

I’m asking for funding because I’m not rolling in dough here man. Telling the story of Zen in America is something I’ve been passionate about for a long time now, and I think this website itself speaks to that at least a bit. Again, maybe you don’t personally feel this a story dying to be told on screen. I disagree. If every documentary were done based on that metric, anyway, few of any worth would ever be made. Most films in the genre reach limited audiences and it’s kind of a joke in the industry that you’ll never be well compensated doing it for any kind of a living (a bit like being an author for most people). Almost by necessity they are always niche projects.

Everyone has to start somewhere. People asked the same questions of me when I started Sweeping Zen, and sometimes they still wonder. I never went to school for web design or journalism of any sort, and quite obviously I have no good business sense. I just had an idea I was passionate about, much like this film. So, I hope you’ll like it when I’m finished. I hope I’ll like it, too.

I’m with Dave on this. Once you get set up with adequate equipment, I would suggest the main hurdle is to define and narrow down your topic to something very specific. It helps to think about your audience: if this is directed toward people with a general interest in Zen, you maybe could at least try to narrow down what kinds of people these are (age, demographics, lifestyles and so on) and get rid of everything that doesn’t fit that demographic. It is sometimes better to have a smaller, well defined audience than a massively generalized one who lack the specific interests to sit through it. I would also suggest surveying your readers of SZ for the kinds of things that would interest them because you have right here a qualified demographic.

People have a lot of stereotypes about Zen, and particularly Zen in America with its counter-culture roots and significant hippie component. Then you have the single-minded, 80s style success oriented type of Zen seeker who would exemplify Steve Jobs. There is the idea that Zen is a form of virtue, which seems patently false, or that practice is about quoting Song dynasty poets and Asian platitudes, or retreating into nihilism or simplified views on karma. The Zen aesthetic is probably something to be explored, especially as an artist yourself, and how traditional Japanese styles have blended with more secular or “Western” elements in America. You could go the historical route and look at Suzuki and Katagiri’s twin legacies. You could go the living memory route, by interviewing people who were practicing back then when Zen was still relatively new. Or you could talk about your own personal spiritual journey and express some of the kinds of ideas and feelings your have put in your essays. Or about the endless contradictions of Zen and how they are reconciled through meditative practice. Maybe you could even look at Zen online in America and how it compares and contrasts with traditional practice settings and ideals.

Making it smaller and more specific to single purpose may seem like you are leaving a lot unexplored — and that’s true. But you will have greater impact the more you narrow it down. If you save some material under a rock you may have enough for a second documentary down the road. Anyway good luck with it. May the road carry you exactly where you are.

I have been giving a lot of consideration around these topics you raise and realized that, ultimately, I’ll have a much clearer picture of what the film is going to be once I am satisfied I have enough material to sit down and start editing. My initial impression after reading your post is that I feel, to tell the story of Zen in America, I’ll have to try and hit each demographic, as that is representative of the diversity we’re looking at here. In other words, to tell the story of Zen in the United States and Canada, I’ll naturally begin with the historical roots (ones which include more than Katagari and Suzuki, like Kobun Chino, Taizan Maezumi, Soyu Matsuoka, the Rinzai lines, Diamond Sangha, et cetera).

To answer Dave, I’d also love to interview Brad for this. If he is open and willing so am I. If not there are other Nishijima sangha members who I’m sure I could get some interview time with, like Jundo and Gustav Ericcson. So I plan to compile a bulk of interviews, asking a variety of core questions of people. When it comes time for the editing, I plan to call on the help of people like James Ford, author of Zen master Who?, in order to flesh out a general historical overview of Zen here.

My hope is that, in the end, the film will have a broad appeal to many demographics. I’d like to do segments on women in the practice and persons of a variety of ethnic groups in the practice, as well.

Basically, I am aiming for a film that is representative of not only what we see happening today and how diverse it all is, but also a film that tries to be as inclusive as possible. I want it to ring true, and for that to be possible I’ll have to go to a lot of places and ask a lot of questions. I’m very excited about it and, if the process is anything like how I paint, I’ll only really know what the painting will ultimately be when I sit down with all the tools at my disposal and start applying the paint. We’ll see how it goes!

Perhaps some of the organizations that have large fees to attend Zen/Buddhist conferences could sponsor you. They have the funds. Look at the Zen/Buddh magazines and see who are successfully advertising their books and contact them as well. Good luck with your project !

Sounds like an ambitious agenda. I wonder if you have considered taking a course in making documentaries/films or just about film in general. That would give you a framework so you could organize your material. If you couldn’t attend in person you could try a MOOC course, that’s online. Here are a couple. Some of them have already started but they have a syllabus and online materials and lectures that you could access even if not signed up for the official course.

The Camera Never Lie https://www.coursera.org/course/lyingcamera Film, images & historical interpretation in the 20th century for those who have a general interest in photojournalism, and films based on historical events.

The Language of Hollywood: Storytelling, Sound, and Color https://www.coursera.org/course/hollywood This Film History course explores how fundamental changes in film technology affected popular Hollywood storytelling. We will consider the transition to sound, and the introduction of color.

Those are just a couple. They’re always bringing up more listings as courses develop. And this is only the Coursera site. Individual schools sometimes offer their own online courses. There’s lots more if you dig around. Even in terms of storytelling technique, framing images, using historical materials in film, narrative structure and so forth well-known and experienced people have put instructional materials and even their lectures from film class on Youtube.

I studied film for 2 years and am so glad I got the guidance I did even though I’ve not gone on to become a film maker or screenwriter (which was my half-hearted ambition at the time). It really opened my eyes to media in general, to constructing narratives in my writing and to appreciate films that I currently watch.

I might be your target audience, Adam. I watch a lot of documentaries, and I hang out here and on Brad Warner’s site from time to time–and I also make my living writing fiction, so I know a bit about story. I also once made a really bad low-budget film on my own dime–it was very difficult and got absolutely terrible reviews fwiw.

I think that what you’re discussing would be interesting as a film where you start off ostensibly to “find a teacher.” You can talk about how you started this zen website, feeling lost and confused, and then it grew into this big thing (scandals, etc) and how it culminated with you deciding to travel the country to find your own teacher and also to discover something about what “zen” really is in the USA.

Now we have the basis for both a personal journey with potential conflict and resolution, but also a reason to tell the larger story of zen in the west. If you look at the many successful docs that end up on HBO, Showtime, etc. they often use the personal story in conjunction with the larger issue. Because many people won’t want to watch simply a documentary with a bunch of old monks drily talking about zen, your personal story will be very important to making it relatable.

For an interesting example of what I’m talking about, check out the documentary film Sherman’s March. It’s a very old doc that devolved from a large story about the civil war to a personal story of one man’s unravelling. Its just awesome on so many levels.

Good luck with this, whichever way you go. It is going to be akin to climbing Mt Everest!

I second Sherman’s March. Anybody interested in documentary filmmaking should see that one, as it opened the door for all of the other first-person documentaries. There’s a way to do it that doesn’t devolve into self-indulgence but rather opens a window into the author’s personal growth, madness, etc.

But Ross, in all of his films, nearly always has a camera glued to his shoulder. It’s how he’s trained himself to interact with the world. That takes guts (and insanity).

I’m thinking that a well-balanced documentary on Zen in America should include interviews with the people who left Zen centers for various reasons, the folks who didn’t receive transmission and moved on or who branched out to establish their own teaching. In the former category, David Chadwick comes to mind, and Leonard Cohen; in the latter, maybe Stephan Bodian. Something like that.

About Sweeping Zen

Established in 2009 as a grassroots initiative, Sweeping Zen is a digital archive of information on Zen Buddhism. Featuring in-depth interviews, an extensive database of biographies, news, articles, podcasts, teacher blogs, events, directories and more, this site is dedicated to offering the public a range of views in the sphere of Zen Buddhist thought. We are also endeavoring to continue creating lineage charts for all Western Zen lines, doing our own small part in advancing historical documentation on this fabulous import of an ancient tradition. Come on in with a tea or coffee. You're always bound to find something new.

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